SOUTHERN REVIVAL: Deep Magic for Hurricane Relief, a small press effort by publisher Tamara Kaye Sellman of Bainbridge Island, WA, aims to help restore hurricane-ravaged libraries in the south as well as to put books back into the hands of evacuees. Sellman has turned this year's edition of her annual anthology, Periphery: A Magical Realist Zine, into a fundraiser.

100% of donations to and sales of the anthology benefit First Book(www.firstbook.org). First Book is a national nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.

Book Relief (www.bookrelief.org) is First Book's massive publishing industry-wide relief initiative to place at least five million new books into the hands, schools and libraries of those affected by the hurricanes. Book Relief is the nation's largest and most comprehensive book distribution relief program.

Slated for release on April 29, this year's 40-page anthology offers diverse poetry and prose which honors and celebrates the cultural magic of the Gulf Coast. This eclectic mix features a creation myth of the Mississippi River, the story of a shape-changing gator woman, a poem discussing revival "works" in a jungle of kudzu, a tale of a flood in New Orleans which "reunites" several generations of women, and other tastes from what can only be described as a jambalaya of Southern voices, vision and invention.

"We like to think of our effort as first aid for the hearts and minds of our Southern neighbors," said Sellman, a self-proclaimed bibliophile who treasures such Southern authors as Connie May Fowler, Carson McCullers and Lee Smith.

She was inspired to help out Southern libraries after previously contributing books from her own library to American military troops around the world. "Food, shelter and clothing are not the only things we need to keep our souls well fed. That's why books, art and music are a necessity, not a luxury. With them, people can thrive, rather than simply survive."

Publisher Sellman aims to generate enough donations from sales of SOUTHERN REVIVAL to assist First Book in re-supplying an entire community library in the hurricane-ravaged South with new books. So far, her efforts have acquired 25% of that goal all through donations and without having sold a single copy of the anthology.

Copies will sell for a minimum purchase donation of $10, "but we expect a lot of people will give more—$20 or $25," said Sellman. She explained, "For every $1 donated to First Book, two new books will be distributed by the charity to a library or an evacuee in need. When someone gives $25, that's the same as providing 50 books. That's a great investment for charity, we think."

She recommends people reserve their copies by contacting her online at magicalrealismmaven@yahoo.com. "Even if we go into a second or third printing, this is going to be a limited run, so people who are interested should go ahead and preorder."

The anthology will be sold online, through local bookstores and via private events. Readings and promotional events are also being arranged for Seattle, Atlanta, New Orleans, Florida and Oxford.